WHO ARE THE KURDS?
Paul Sullivan explains the forces that have shaped Kurdish history.HNN .

BRITAIN'S AWFUL WAR AGAINST IRAQ
An attempt by a British force in 1915 to topple the regime in Baghdad ended in utter disaster.
Times (London) .

CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION ON WAR WITH IRAQ
Text of the Joint Resolution on the use of force against Iraq, passed by Congress October 11, 2002. HNN.

HNN: HOW DID IRAQ AND THE U.S. BECOME ENEMIES?
While relations with Iraq have virtually dominated American foreign policy considerations for the past decade, and serve as the current casus belli of the Bush administration, the United States has a much longer history of involvement with that nation, a background which provides essential perspective on today’s crisis and Washington’s role in Iraqi politics over the past half-century.
HNN.

HNN: DID SADDAM GAS THE KURDS?
In early February 2003 the NYT published an op ed by Stephen C. Pelletiere, a retired Army War college professor, that raised doubts about the claim that Saddam gassed the Kurds at Halabaja in 1988. Juan Cole disputed Pelletiere's claims in an article on HNN.
HNN.

ATLANTIC MONTHLY HISTORY OF IRAQ
With the United States seemingly moving ever closer to a confrontation with Iraq, and with the debate about the advisability of an attack growing ever more heated, now seems a fitting time to take a considered look at Iraq, and at some of the arguments, both historical and new, on the subject of U.S. involvement there. A collection of Atlantic articles from 1958 to the present offers a variety of perspectives on this volatile nation and its contentious relationship with the United States. Atlantic Monthly

HOW DID IRAQ COME INTO BEING?
Saddam Hussein maintains, as a means of establishing the legitimacy of Iraq, that the country has a 5,000 year history. In this interview on NPR, Charles Tripp -- author of a history of Iraq --points out Iraq was actually the creation of the British.HNN.

KURDISTAN TIMELINE
A timeline of events in the modern history of Kurdistan, from the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which provided for the creation of an autonomous Kurdistan, to the signing of a peace agreement in 2002 between the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which reactivated a unified parliament.
Le Monde.

IRAQ: THE FIFTY-FIRST STATE?
In this piece, James Fallows predicts that a war on Iraq would require the United States to spend years reconstructing the country. He argues that the unforseen consequences in this war would probably be large and reviews cases in the past in which policymakers were confounded by the consequences of their actions.Atlantic Monthly (November, 2002).

THE WAR POWER
Why they call the war power the"stop look and listen" clause--and why we need to stop, look and listen now. By University of Utah law professor Edwin B. Firmage, co-author of: To Chain the Dog of War.
HNN.

More Comments:

Mohammed Ben Jelloun -
5/7/2005

What's Consociational Patriotism?

From Lebanon to Iraq

by Mohammed Ben Jelloun

(Swans - April 25, 2005) Consociational patriotism is national power-sharing and national self-determination, simultaneously. In the case of Iraq, it is partly premised on a timetable for US evacuation with international guarantees for the withdrawal of all forms of foreign presence and partly premised on a politics of national unity and power-sharing for major, ethnic and confessional, communities in the country. It is premised on patriotic reconciliation between Kurds and Arabs in the first place. The reconciliation is comparable to the historical compromise in 1943 Lebanon, which united Christians and Muslims against their own drifting, Francophile and pan-Arab, respectively. Indeed, compared to well known historical consociational models (Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Northern Ireland, etc.), Lebanon's is a nearly unique experiment in patriotic consociationalism. Lebanon's is a typically colonial, anti-colonial and postcolonial consociationalism and therefore particularly telling in the case of Iraq.

[...]

Lastly, while parliamentary, executive and economic quotas should stay open to negotiations and package deals between the main Iraqi communities, a quota of a no more or less than 50% for the Iraqi Shi'a may in fact promote cooperation with other political blocs and prevent majority tyranny. To be sure, Sunni Iraqis would be over-represented, but fewer so compared to Lebanon's Christians since the 50:50 agreement of 1989. (The Sunni 50% could be in turn equally parted along ethnic or belief lines; between Arabs and Kurds or Islamists and secularists.) This sort of quotas could be used immediately to determine the choice of troops, international or regional, to replace the occupation forces in a transitional period.

Aeisha Muhammad -
1/16/2005

For the New Year, a bouquet of thousands of flowers to Iraq, to the Iraqi resistance and to Saddam Hussein

By Abu Assur

Yes! Thousands of flowers to the men of the year! Thousands bouquets of roses, red roses, love roses to the Iraqi Resistance. To the heroes, who are writing shining pages of the history against the most horrifying blood thirsty Hydra in mythology or in documented history. And all is happening, again, in Mesopotamia. All is happening again in Iraq. God bless Iraq for the New Year. Many more flowers to Saddam Hussein, the living martyr who engineered, conceived, planned and put into practice the resistance against the US barbarian invaders in the land of Sinnaar, Sinn, the god full moon,

Sorry and sorry. I didn't want to spoil this occasion by talking about the US yobs. They are so far away from any thing noble. They are so alien to any thing refined, generous and grand. They are so strange from beauty. They slaughter singing birds, they stamp on flowers and their army of gangsters happily kills innocent Iraqis of the age of flowers.

Today, I wanted my most loved Iraqi Resisters to talk to you in a language of flowers. No other language can possibly be more appropriate on this occasion. You have been fighting with your faith filling your hearts the US monster in Mesopotamia, for the last twenty-four months or so. You will for this New Year, get a special present. You will have on your heads, above your black beautiful, Sumerian eyes, on your wheat cloured bodies millions of the river Tigris banks roses petals.

How can I start, how can I dare talk to you? You who abandoned the most precious and the dearest, your souls, your young lives, families and children to carry the cross of your love for Iraq, for the love of the Iraqi plains, Iraq's mountains, its date palm tree groves, its sacred soil.

Pardon me but I can't help it! Allow me to talk about the enemy you are fighting. You have been giving us good news after good news defeating the enemy of mankind. Here I promise you, even the gangsters will have more rapped gifts, not surprise ones I admit, it is a permanent wish, and I'll let you do the rest. We wish for the mercenaries US and co. hundred more IEDs and thousands more bullets and many more resounding tactical defeats for Tarzan Abizeid and more confusion, stuttering, and stammering for the pirates boss Bush the silly holy and the stupid lump.

Flowers, flowers, flowers. Rains of flowers. Showers of petals. Clouds of sent and perfume will surround you. Their fragrance will inhabit the martyrs. Their rain of petals will purify Iraq from the invaders filth.

Flower language is different from country to country. Here I will use the French flowers language. The French. Guess why? And let them stuff their bowls with more and more Abu Ghraib freedom fries. They will not be able to understand any flower language, be French, Iraqi or Palestinian! So it is a secret between two lovers, face to face, it is a whisper under a palm tree, on the plains, in the moonlight.

Twenty-four flowers, for the twenty-four months we saw the Beast being humiliated in the mire of the Land-Of-The-Two-Rivers. This language will say it all and more to greeting you for a new and happy year.

For an affectionate and tender love here are many pansies. I am not a kind of flighty heart. My love is not a timid or a shy love I shall shout it on the minarets of Fallujah. I shall scream it on the Assyrian walls of Nineveh. I beg you to believe me. Here I am hugging in my arms bundles of blueberries. From the very beginning I was in love with you. Now let me declare my love to you all. I love you Iraq. Here are mountains of roses, red roses, and here are with my love, with my tears, with my naked hands, with my prayers, with an embarrassed sigh, with one handful of the soil of Iraq in one hand and in the other a spray of tulips from Nineveh, from Mosul. To tell you how much I love you and to express the joy of my love to you Iraqi resistant fighters please here are a shower of azaleas. For your perseverance I will offer you gardens of anemones! For the nights you don't sleep and the days you never rest, for your outstanding sacrifices, there are plantations of snapdragons. For the purity of your love for Iraq, I will spread on your proud foreheads millions of lilies. For your faith and you fervor, forest of orchids. For your sincerity, and for your loyalty, please accept, bunches of red peonies.

While your enemy is hated from the rising sun to the setting sun, the world over will continue to respect you and to love you Iraqis. So there will be no chamomile bouquets to declare the end of their love for you.

Billions of human beings all around the planet are watching you; they have put all their hope in your courage. They admire your generosity, they shout waving their hands holding a multitude of mauve lilacs screaming in rhyme and rhythm, and our hearts are with you. They kneel in respect for your raging ardor, for vowing your souls for your beloved Iraq and they shower you and spread on your feet perfumed carnations or French marigolds. These people are so proud of you that they are jealous, they would've like to have your might, your devotion, they would've liked to still carry your ideals and be able to give their lives for their principles as you do. I mean a friendly jealousy and they rain on you cyclamens. The whole planet sees nobody but you Iraqi resistant fighters and make you signs with millions of daisies and the other half planet respond singing we love you Iraq and say let's love each other from now on and they will let you have white lilacs fields spreading to the horizons.

For the Tigris and the Euphrates coquetry you loved so much and you still love, lilies of the valleys will grow by the thousands.

For you the most dignified of all, the martyrs, a faithful souvenir and many bouquets of forget-me-nots. For your shed blood for the multitude of humanity, irises from tender hearts. Your martyrdom offered security and pride to Iraq and we cover your holy tombs, the shrines of your remains, with mimosas. The humanity, will give you rendezvous, with my overwhelming heart, soon very soon, God willing, in liberated Iraq, holding tight against my breath, covered with my tears, overcoming my fears, many fears, fields of gladiolas.

Yes, you can reproach all your Arab brothers who once said we didn't believe you, by offering them sweet peas. These Arabs who were devastated to see Iraq occupied and have doubted one second in your courage and determination, give them a handful of buttercups. As for those who love you immensely in their heart and hide their love because of tyrant regimes and eunuchs kinglets, they will send you soon tons of violets.

And for the living martyr Saddam Hussein twenty five million date palm trees.

Happy New Year Iraq! Happy New Year Iraq!

For 2005 the world says: US Imperialism we wish you a great defeat in Iraq.

Aeisha Muhammad -
1/16/2005

Bush with his arrogance led the United States into a war that is not in the interest of the American people; the war became costly and levied a heavy toll on its citizens. The economy is getting worse and the poor are being used to fuel this blatant war.

The search for the “weapons of mass destruction” came to an end simply because the weapons there were no weapons .The real weapons of mass destruction were in the hands of Washington, which were used against the Iraqis since 1991 and they are still being used. President George W. Bush does not want to recognize that the weapons of mass destruction had already destroyed Iraq and flattened its institutions and economy. Millions of Iraqis died since the unjust embargo imposed more than a decade ago and they are still dying by the daily bombardment of Iraqi cities and towns. This fanatic and blind policy of aggression conducted by the United States was responsible for hundreds of mass graves in Iraq, unfortunately not many countries are heard in protest

The recent bombing of a house in Mosul that killed 14 innocent people was a testimony of this reckless war. This is terrorism by itself that the World has ignored or tolerated as a result of fear from Uncle Sam, the international tyrant.

Now the date of the so called election is approaching, the candidates are unknown and the parties who are involved are participants and supporters of the occupation establishment, they came from abroad and certainly they do not represent the Iraqi people in any way.

We know that elections under the auspices of occupation and candidates blessed by the American imperialists and by Zionism offer no solution but another deception by the Bush Administration to mislead the American people that he is concerned about “democracy” in Iraq.

The bankrupt policy of Bush is seeking non Iraqi voters to legitimize the “ democratization” of Iraq, 240,000 were wooed from the Zionist entity, “Israel”, to cast their votes as Iraqi descendents in favor of the US supported candidates. About one million voters are being sought from abroad to fulfill the Bush desire for “democracy.” Hundreds of thousands of Iranians crossed the borders to Iraq; they were given Iraqi identification cards to support the candidates of the religious parties leaning towards the Mullahs’ regime.

Choosing voters from outside of Iraq is a new trend of deception that the Bush Administration chose to legitimize the occupation of Iraq and to keep fighting a war that is in the interest of corporate America.

Some wise voices are calling to find a way to save the United States before it faces the humiliation of defeat at the hands of the Resistance. Sixteen House Democrats led by Rep. Lynn Woolsey of Petaluma, California, called on President Bush to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, just as some administration supporters are starting to question the wisdom of staying the course in the war. The U.S. spent $102 billion through Sept. 30, 2004 on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with costs averaging $4.8 billion a month, the Pentagon comptroller's office said. Bush administration officials in February may seek as much as $70 billion in additional Iraq funding in a request separate from the fiscal 2006 defense budget.

The American people must rally around Representative Lynn Woolsey and her colleagues and call upon the Administration to withdraw immediately from Iraq before it is too late. Bring the US troops home where they belong and let the Iraqis decide their destiny.

Ken Edwards -
4/11/2003

Do you have an archive of the article by Roger Morris about Iraq which was on posted at http://hnn.us/articles/ about March 20, 2003?

Thanks;
Ken

dan -
4/1/2003

If you love the word "may," you will love this report. I believe it rivals the article "the" in frequency, possibly surpassing it if "might" and "could" are included!

Another pet phrase is "retains expertise," as in 'the scientists have not died yet.'

I dare the author to find any other similarly sized and populated nation with a substantially different report...